<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Space Song by Rythulia</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964346">Space Song</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rythulia/pseuds/Rythulia'>Rythulia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No Fandom, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>An astronaut and his wife, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling in love with AI, Future, Hurt/Comfort, Learning to fix a broken relationship, Letters, Letters that were never sent, Loneliness, Love Letters, Marriage, Science Fiction, aces in space, space</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:21:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,494</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964346</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rythulia/pseuds/Rythulia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Endymion and Helen spend a year apart - he on the moon, she on Earth. Both are forever changed. Can a relationship survive when both parties can't recognise each other?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Character/Other(s), Original Female Character/Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Letters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: I wrote this for my creative writing class at uni. The first part had to be in the first person, while the last part had to take place after "an event", which is why chapter one is told through letters and chapter two is a "regular" third person POV. I mostly wanted to archive it somewhere as I like some of my writing in part two.</p><p>The title of this story comes from the song "Space Song" by Beach House, which I didn't discover until after I finished this, but it totally fits the mood and themes of the story, so I would highly recommend listening to it while you read if you can.</p><p>Thank you for clicking on this original story and I hope you enjoy it! :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>November 21, 2043</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>It’s been three months since the mission started. I hadn’t anticipated how lonely I would grow to be. I thought it wouldn’t affect me — me, the kid who used to spend my summer holidays in my room all day, only talking to my parents when necessary. I told Control, and they suggested writing letters. I can’t send them, of course. But they said the act of writing to someone real, with pen and paper, would help me. So that’s what I’m starting today. Their psychologists are the most well-paid on the planet, so I guess they know what they’re doing. It feels weird… but kind of comforting at the same time?</p>
<p>Anyway. The mission is fine. Mostly I dig up ice. Mostly it’s the machine that does it. I’m free to walk around the moon during the day. Or, well, I assume it’s “day”. All I know is it’s ‘day’ when I’m awake, and ‘night’ when I’m asleep. You ever get that on Earth? <strike>Do you think you understand?</strike> I hope I don’t sound silly. <strike>Not like you’ll ever read this anyway</strike></p>
<p>I hope you’re doing well. Hope work’s okay.</p>
<p>Yours,</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>December 24, 2043</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>It’s been over a month since my last letter. <strike>I got so much second-hand embarrassment</strike> I’m sorry about that.</p>
<p>It’s Christmas now. Or about to be. It’s the first Christmas we’ve spent apart since the one <strike>when your mother got sick</strike> in 2036. I hope you’re having a good Christmas dinner. I’m feasting on canned food, as usual. At least it tastes better than it looks, I’ll give it that.</p>
<p>Merry Christmas, from Europa. (Wish I could send a postcard with that.)</p>
<p>Yours,</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>December 31, 2043</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Endymion,</p>
<p>My therapist suggested writing letters to you. I don’t know if you’ll ever get to read them, but I’m doing it anyway. For myself.</p>
<p>I’ve been seeing her quite regularly for the past few weeks. It’s been hard without you. I miss you. I wish you were here. <strike>I sound so cliché</strike></p>
<p>Dad hasn’t been feeling great. Had to practically beg him to go to the doctor. He’s going to have some tests done. I know nothing is certain, but you know me — I can’t help but worry.</p>
<p>Hope you’re doing well. Hope Europa is pretty.</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Helen</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>January 2, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>I had the greatest idea today. While doing the usual waiting around for the machine to finish analysing a chunk of ice, I thought: why not code something? Why not have a little machine of my own — one that had your personality?</p>
<p>I know you <strike>have never liked my</strike> <strike>might not approve of</strike> <strike>may think I’m crazy</strike> might call me silly, but I <strike>am so lonely</strike> need something to do.</p>
<p>I’ve started coding an AI that talks and thinks just like you, Helen. So I’ll have somebody to talk to. <strike>These letters aren’t cutting it</strike> I’ll call her Helen, too.</p>
<p>I hope everything’s okay back home.</p>
<p>Yours,</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>February 14, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Endymion,</p>
<p>It’s Valentine’s Day. It’s odd to be spending it without you. Doesn’t feel right.</p>
<p>Dad’s test results came back. It’s stage 3. My friends are comforting me, saying he’ll get better. The doctors don’t really say that kind of stuff.</p>
<p>If you were here, you’d know what to say in order to make me feel better.</p>
<p>Miss you, always.</p>
<p>Yours,</p>
<p>Helen</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>February 15, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>It’s done. “Helen” and I said hello to each other today. I told her who I was, that we were on Europa on a mission, and that she’ll only stay with me for the duration of the mission. She’s pretty great so far. She’s cheerful and optimistic, but kind of naive. It’s sort of fun to be around her. It’s amazing to be talking to somebody again.</p>
<p>She has a good sense of humour, too. I’ll note down the jokes she says, so I can tell them to you.</p>
<p>Hope you’re having a good day.</p>
<p>Yours,</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>March 6, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>“Hel” is really great to be around. She cracks me up with her jokes. The moon isn’t so silent anymore with her here. I told her it will soon be the spring equinox back on Earth and she got so curious about it — she’d never heard of it! She’s just an AI and yet she seems <strike>so full of life</strike> to enjoy life very much — even if it’s just the two of us on this desert Europa. She listens to me talk for hours and yet she never seems to be bothered by it. It’s hard to be down with her around.</p>
<p>Hope you’re doing well.</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>March 26, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Endymion,</p>
<p>Chemo is taking its toll on dad, I can tell. I’m terrified. I wish you’d never gone on this stupid mission.</p>
<p>Helen</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>April 24, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The doctors say the chemo isn’t working. I can’t stop crying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>June 2, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dad is weakening. I’m losing him. You both are the only people close to me I have left and I’m losing both of you.</p>
<p>Please come back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>June 12, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sorry I didn’t write for so long. I kept forgetting.</p>
<p>There isn’t much going on. We’re coming to a close of all of our analysis. Control says I should be able to see a meteor shower from here in the next few weeks. I’m so excited. I’ve never seen a meteor shower from so close.</p>
<p>“Hel” is doing well. She’s actually decided to change her name — now she’s called “Selene”. I didn’t think AIs could do that — how interesting is that? I think she’s going to love the meteor shower.</p>
<p>Hope Earth is as it always is.</p>
<p>Endy</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>July 4, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Helen, To: Endymion </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dad is dead. My world is falling apart. Why aren’t you here? I need you. I need you and you aren’t here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>July 4, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The meteor shower was amazing. It’s incredible how small we are compared to the vast universe. The planets, the stars, the moons — these huge bodies that just float in space, without a consciousness, without a purpose — just <em>being</em>. The way the universe doesn’t care about us little ants is so liberating. Space is so beautiful. Selene agrees. It was fun trying to show her the meteor shower through the machine’s screen, and trying to explain to her what it was. I’m glad she was able to see it, and that I was able to, also.</p>
<p>What a special fourth of July.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>August 8, 2044</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em> From: Endymion, To: Helen </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dear Helen,</p>
<p>Looks like this is the last letter I’ll write. The mission is officially over. I’ll be back on Earth in time for the end of summer. I’ll have to shut off Selene soon… </p>
<p>I look forward to seeing you.</p>
<p>Endymion</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Fall back into place</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the NASA acceptance letter had arrived, they’d both been ecstatic. It had been Endymion’s life-long desire to join the space station ever since he was a child—he used to tell her how he’d go around saying his name was a “premonition of his destiny” to go to the moon—and now he’d finally get to live his dream. Helen, supportive and lovely as she’d always been, was just as happy for him—his joy was her joy.</p>
<p>The staff warned them endlessly: they said it would be hard, they said it would be straining, some said it’d be the true test of their marriage. Helen and Endymion accepted their warnings without rebutting them. Although they would have sometimes liked to do so—if they hadn’t split up when Helen’s mother passed away, there was no way a space mission would seal the coffin of their marriage—they opted to stay quiet, smile, and maintain a positive attitude when they were alone.</p>
<p>After all, it was only a year. On the moon. How hard could it be?</p>
<p>But now, a whole 12 months later, Helen can’t believe how she could have ever thought that back then.</p>
<p>Endymion is due to come back to Earth that afternoon. He’s been away for a year, but to Helen it felt like a lifetime.</p>
<p>She has changed. She is a different person. Her father had died during that time—her constant pillar throughout her life. The other pillar, the man she’d married, was unreachable, for the first time.</p>
<p>Her heart feels like it’s tearing itself in two after an excruciating battle with her mind the past few months.</p>
<p>She is angry. She is glad. She is hurt. She is delighted. She wants to scream at Endymion and hit him in the chest and tell him that she never wants to see him ever again. She wants to hug him close, so tight that she can feel every bone and every scar and every little piece of stardust on his skin, and never ever let him go.</p>
<p>When she finally sees him, they lightly hug each other, as if they’ve both forgotten how to hug, as if they are both afraid of breaking the other—or themselves.</p>
<p>They stay silent while the staff guides them back to the entrance of the building, and Helen points at her car—their car—because Endymion has forgotten what it looks like; and throughout the whole ride home, where Endymion looks outside the window with childlike naivety and hunger for knowledge—the trees, the birds, the sounds, the sun, the warmth, all new, all needing to be taken in once more; and when they arrive at the house, their house, Endymion stands on the porch, observing every angle, every colour, every corner of its architecture, before he finally follows her inside.</p>
<p>Once inside, Helen proposes he rest in the bedroom after the no-doubt tiring journey and he nods, muscle memory carrying his legs and body to the bedroom that they still share, the bedroom he hasn’t slept in or been in for a year. Helen sets herself up in the guest room, so as to not disturb him, waiting for him to come out on his own accord, like a wounded animal.</p>
<p>He disappears until noon the next day.</p><hr/>
<p>The next few days are like treading on sharp needles. The psychological staff had always advised her that Endymion might come home slightly changed, might need to re-adapt, might need his time.</p>
<p>Endymion, Endymion, Endymion. Who is she, the astronaut's wife or the astronaut's carer? Would it hurt them to show the slightest bit of concern for her? They want to make sure her husband is okay; is she not worthy of the same attention?</p>
<p>She lets him do whatever he wants for the first week. And the second week. And the third.</p>
<p>He is silent, a lot. He reads books, watches daytime tv, looks outside the window. Sometimes she catches him sitting on the sofa, by himself, engulfed in total silence. He spends a lot of time showering but she doesn’t bring it up.</p>
<p>The only times he speaks animatedly are on the phone. NASA had told her he’d be followed by a counsellor when he came back to Earth, to make sure he’d adjust back to life on a planet with gravity. She hears snippets of his conversations by accident—he talks mostly about the moon, space, how it compares to Earth, and once he talks about seeing a meteor shower.</p>
<p>She’s never seen a meteor shower.</p>
<p>When the calls end, he goes back to his quiet self. He makes small talk with her—no doubt an exercise from the therapist—about the weather, her work day, and anything else that doesn’t matter. When she replies, he nods, hums, or says needless one-syllable words that make her wonder why he is even putting her through all this effort of talking if he isn’t going to do the bare minimum for conversing.</p>
<p>This isn’t exactly the man she’s married.</p>
<p>At times she’s been tempted to disrupt that quietness of his. She plays and replays in her head scenes of herself, coming home, and screaming at the top of her lungs as soon as she’s closed the door. She thinks up of all the nasty, sarcastic comments she could spit at him when she walks in on him in the living room, almost twistingly taking pleasure into seeing how mean she can be, how far she can push herself. Something, <em> anything</em>, to get a reaction out of him—and a retaliation out of her.</p>
<p>The anger hasn’t subsided. She wants to express it, to sic it on him. But she feels guilty—this is his period of recovery; she has no right to inflict her anger upon him when he hasn’t done anything to deserve it. Anything recent, or outwardly wrong, that is. There is plenty to yell about for the past year, but her conscience does not permit her to act on it. She needs him to make a mistake, now, to light the flame under the match—then she is allowed to explode.</p>
<p>His silence is driving her mad, but silently so.</p><hr/>
<p>It is on a perfectly tempered September day that she finally finds the perfect thing to light every match at once.</p>
<p>“What are these?” she asks him, holding a small stack of pieces of paper.</p>
<p>“Where did you get those?” he asks instead.</p>
<p>“I was finally putting your stuff away and I found these.” He hasn’t touched his suitcase in weeks and the lack of unpacking had been putting her on edge—as if he is just waiting to go back to space in a few days.</p>
<p>“Care to tell me what the hell these letters are? You were pretend-writing to me? Have anything you’d like to inform me of?”</p>
<p>“Since you’ve clearly read them, you already know the answer.”</p>
<p>His composure is infuriating.</p>
<p>“Don’t give me that! This is serious! You—you replaced me!”</p>
<p>She raises her voice to get him to do the same.</p>
<p>“I was very lonely up there. I had what I had to do to survive. So I built an AI.”</p>
<p>“<em>You built another woman! </em>”</p>
<p>It feels good to be the reason for his silence.</p>
<p>“Your letters stop for a long while after you built her. Then you don’t talk about yourself anymore—it’s all about this AI this, the AI that—and you even called her <em> Helen</em>—”</p>
<p>“Her name is <em> Selene</em>.”</p>
<p>She has anticipated he’d talk back—she has even wished for it. But she isn’t prepared for this.</p>
<p>“<em>Is? </em>”</p>
<p>She’s been fired up to start a fight for weeks, months. A side of her has been looking forward to it. As she shakily whispers her incredulity, she knows they are about to step onto different, unknown territory—something with the potential to change things. Permanently.</p>
<p>And yet, she doesn’t hesitate. She needs to know.</p>
<p>Endymion shifts his gaze, unable to hold hers, looking at the floor—ready for castigation.</p>
<p>She knows.</p>
<p>“You didn’t turn her off.”</p>
<p>She makes an accusation that he doesn’t refute.</p>
<p>“You—you still talk to her. There is no NASA therapist. It’s her.”</p>
<p>Her words are calm, steady, surprising even herself. Who is this woman who is currently, relentlessly intent on putting an end to their marriage, hurting both of them in the process, unstoppable and unflinching? Is it her? It doesn’t feel like her.</p>
<p>Endymion closes his eyes, like a child waiting for punishment.</p>
<p>He is not trying to ask for forgiveness.</p>
<p>The flame has gone out—all that remains is numbness and a hollow, sinking feeling of everything gone wrong.</p>
<p>Helen lets Endymion’s never-sent letters fall to the ground, the sound of her step and the slam of the door the only noise in the house.</p><hr/>
<p>Floating, floating, floating.</p>
<p>In space, your feet never stick to the floor. You’re never grounded, on your own—you need aids to do that for you.</p>
<p>It is empty. All of it is empty. And vast. And same-looking—black, black as the blackest night in the brightest city.</p>
<p>Silent. It is utterly, completely, painstakingly silent.</p>
<p>The novelty of being in space wears off. The importance of the mission becomes hazy. The days fall to meaninglessness.</p>
<p>Floating, floating, floating.</p>
<p>Keep yourself grounded.</p>
<p>Humans are not made for space.</p>
<p>Humans are not made to be alone.</p>
<p>It’s the sharpest of double-edged swords: the majestic, cosmic beauty of space, with its unique visions and experiences that only truly a handful of people get to say they’ve lived and seen in their meagre lifetimes; and nobody to share it with.</p>
<p>Even back on Earth, how can one explain what it feels to see a meteor shower up close? To see brightness after months of pure physical darkness? To be, walk, live on the moon? To be able to make out the surfaces of celestial bodies like somebody back on Earth might be able to make out the lines on the palm of their hands?</p>
<p>How is one supposed to go back to normalcy when they have lived so much in so little time? When their new normalcy is everyone’s perpetual oddity?</p>
<p>Humans are not made for space.</p>
<p>He wanted—no, <em> needed </em>to share that normalcy with somebody who would have found it just as normal as he did. Somebody who was curious about everything—and excited about everything. Somebody with no preconceptions and without a previous life for those preconceptions to exist. Somebody with a blank slate. For them—and for him.</p>
<p>Humans are not made to be alone.</p>
<p>His house is weird. The streets are weird. His country is weird.</p>
<p>There is gravity.</p>
<p>It weirds him out, too.</p>
<p>He does mundane things to keep himself grounded—reading, watching, showering.</p>
<p>The water falls down on him. There is gravity.</p>
<p>He really prefers looking at nature; listening to the birds; feeling the rain. These simple gestures keep him grounded the most.</p>
<p>He misses floating.</p>
<p>He stands up on the sofa. He takes a deep breath. He jumps.</p>
<p>Floating, floating, floating.</p><hr/>
<p>They don’t talk for a week.</p>
<p>After a week, he finds a small, neat pile of pieces of paper on the guest room bed. He reads them.</p>
<p>He realises they’re letters that Helen wrote to him that she also never sent. He reads them, and he focuses on her handwriting, on the silly way she writes the letter f, on the different types of pens that she used. He reads them over and over, cross-checking the dates of his own letters. He reads them and he realises how similar they are in their brokenness, in their pieces.</p>
<p>He reads them and cries.</p>
<p>That day, he shuts off Selene.</p><hr/>
<p>They walk around their own house like ghosts, haunting each other.</p>
<p>It feels like there should be talks: talks of lawyers, talks of dividing, talks of packing. But nothing happens. They let each other grieve.</p>
<p>After another week, he comes out of the guest bedroom to keep himself grounded in the living room for the day, and he sees Helen. She’s waiting for him.</p>
<p>He sits beside her. For the first time in a year, they look at each other in the eyes.</p>
<p>Helen says everything will be okay. They will be okay.</p>
<p>He, a lost cosmonaut who fell in love with someone else, who has seen the extraordinary, experienced the full extent of littleness and brevity of all life, and needs to rehabilitate back to being on Earth; he will be okay.</p>
<p>She, a chipped canvas who has lived the ordinary, been damaged by life, been damaged by him, bitter and resentful and guilty, and yet still kindling hopefulness; she will be okay.</p>
<p>They will be okay.</p>
<p>Endymion starts crying, taking deep breaths in-between ugly sobs to tell her he’s sorry—he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s sorry—as she keeps repeating it—they will be okay, they will be okay, they will be okay. It’s a mantra, it’s comfort, it’s a promise.</p>
<p>Their bones and skin might become mud, might rot and regrow into a tree, a speck of dust on Earth and space, with no grand plans and no signs of their existence left except for here and now, with each other, where they want to live—a small piece of green and concrete, a piece on a dot in the void, a shelter with their memories and their wishes, a home unique to them, built by them for each other, found nowhere else in the universe.</p>
<p>They hug, tightly, with urgency, each feeling every sob, every hiccup, the earthly flesh and dust, the weight of gravity. The hug they should have given each other weeks ago, when they saw each other at the space station.</p>
<p>They didn’t know then. They do now.</p>
<p>They will be okay, one way or another.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here is the conclusion of this original. I hope you enjoyed it! Comments are always welcome. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>